c 



STRAY 



Dr. C. 



LJ 



May, 1917 



BIRDS came 

 in a bunch 

 March 21— 

 robins, blue- 

 birds, and mead- 

 ow-Uirks. March 

 29, soft maples 

 in bloom; 31st, 

 bees brought out 



of cellar, thermometer reaching 72 degrees ; 

 and within 36 hours the ground was covered 

 with snow. 



Folding sections with a Hubbard press. 

 Ira D. Bartlett says. Domestic Beekeeper, 

 166, " After practice one can fold a box of 

 500 in a half-hour. I have folded a box in 

 fifteen minutes, and very seldom take more 

 than twenty minutes." 



" One bee^ inside the veil is worse than a 

 dozen with no veil on," p. 139. T'other way 

 'round here, Jean White. The minute a bee 

 tinds itself trapped in a veil, it gives up all 

 thought of stinging, and turns its whole at- 

 tention to eseaj^ing. 



Flour, especially rye flour, is used as a 

 substitute for pollen. Flour generally 

 means bolted flour. I wonder if the best 

 part isn't bolted out. Any grain ground 

 and not bolted is good, I think. I have used 

 ground corn and oats, the kind fed to cows, 

 and of course unbolted, with satisfaction. 



European foul brood is called a disease 

 of the unsealed larvae. I don't believe it's 

 as much so as you might think. Take a 

 diseased comb and tear open the sealed 

 cells, and you will find a lot of them con- 

 taining dead larvae that showed no indica- 

 tion of the disease until unsealed. But the 

 thing to spot European foul brood by is 

 the yellowish unsealed larvae. 



" Extracted boney can be used in a thou- 

 sand and' one ways, while comb honey can 

 be eaten only with a spoon," says Dr. 

 Cheney, p. 293. Surely, doctor, when you 

 have biscuit and honey you don't eat it with 

 a spoon. " In this locality " the with-a- 

 spoon method is just tbe one way in which 

 comb honey is never eaten. Always with a 

 knife — cut with a knife, and spread with a 

 knife. Are there really different fashions in 

 different places as to the way of eating 

 honey ? What's the vogtie at Medina ? 



Surprise is expressed bj' Mrs. Allen, 127, 

 that I should say that outside combs some- 

 limes have less brood than others, while with 

 her it is always so. Possibly she has 10- 

 frame hives, while I have 8-frame. Years 

 ago, when I had 10-frame hives, I tliink tlie 

 rule was that both outside combs were en- 

 tirely without brood. Then when I chang- 

 ed to 8-frame hives, one or both outside 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



STRAWS 



C. Miller 



1 



TU 



357 



combs were 

 often broodless, 

 but often with 

 a little brood in 

 (ine or both. 

 Gradually the 

 amount of brood 

 in the outside 

 combs increased, 

 until now one or both may be as well filled 

 in the height of brood-rearing as the central 

 combs. I don't know why the gradual 

 change, unless it be that the bees are now 

 bettei-. But take it tlu-uout the season, and 

 the rule still is that there is less brood in 

 the outside combs. 



The old idea that a laying worker can 

 be lost by being shaken on the ground 40 

 yards from the hive can hardly be accepted 

 nowadays, even on the word of such a veter- 

 an as Major Shallard, p. 61. Please re- 

 member that it is now understood that there 

 are a whole lot of "her;" indeed, a large 

 proportion of the colony are found by dis- 

 section to contain eggs. Do you suppose 

 they have never taken a cleansing flight, 

 marking their location? Even if you 

 should lose all the layers, are you sure the 

 other old workers would be less hostile to a 

 new queen? And even if you succeed in 

 introducing a queen, are you sure you would 

 not have done it just as well without " los- 

 ing " your layers? 



That^S a viery fair show-up as to the dif- 

 fei'ence between extracted and comb honey 

 for the beginner, p. 285; and at one point, 

 Huber, you might have made the case even 

 stronger for extracted. You speak of " the 

 inadequate excuse that the production of 

 comb honey requires no boney-extraetor," 

 but you don't mention an investment that 

 comb honey does require in the way of 

 extra sections and foundation that must be 

 always on hand. It's utterly impossible 

 for you to know in advance exactly how 

 many sections you will need, and you should 

 have ready in adyance enough sections for 

 a big season, whether the season proves big 

 or not. And, no matter how closely you 

 plan in the spring, you will always have a 

 lot of unfinished and untouched sections in 

 the fall to be carried over. You don't have 

 to have a very large apiary before the extra 

 capital thus lying idle will buy you an ex- 

 tractor. 



Mrs. Allen declares against dummies, y>- 

 127, among other things saying she doubts 

 if it's a much quicker operation to get out 

 a dummy than a comb. That's the gist of 

 the wliole matter. Mi's. Allen. After taking 

 dummies out thousands of times during 



